Oliver Keith Baker

Last updated
Oliver Keith Baker
Born (1959-07-18) 18 July 1959 (age 63)
Nationality American
Alma mater Stanford University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
AwardsEdward A. Bouchet Award (2002)
Scientific career
Fields Particle Physics
Astrophysics
Institutions Yale University
Hampton University
ATLAS Collaboration
Doctoral advisor Arthur B. C. Walker Jr.

Oliver Keith Baker is an American experimental particle physicist and astrophysicist, best known for his work on the Higgs boson and dark matter. In 2002, he won the Edward Alexander Bouchet Award of the American Physical Society: "For his contribution to nuclear and particle physics; for building the infrastructure to do these measurements; and for being active in outreach activities, both locally and nationally." [1]

Contents

Early life and education

Oliver Keith Baker was born in McGehee, Arkansas in 1959 to parents Oliver and Yvonne Baker, and grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. [2]

Keith Baker received his B.S. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1981. Baker completed both his M.S. in physics and mathematics in 1984 and his Ph.D. in physics in 1987 from Stanford working on experimental nuclear physics. [1]

Career

Baker completed a post-doc at Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1986 to 1988 conducting research on muon catalyzed fusion. [2] After his post-doc, Baker joined Hampton University in 1989 [3] as an assistant professor in the physics department with a joint appointment as a staff scientist at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. [4] In 2002, Baker received an Endowed University Professorship from Hampton University for his contributions to experimental nuclear and particle physics research as well as his work in outreach activities. [3] [1]

In 2006, Baker began professorship at Yale University where he was the first tenured African American faculty member in the physics department. [5] Baker is a member of the ATLAS Collaboration, which in 2012 discovered the Higgs boson predicted by the Standard Model. [6] Baker also models dark sector analogues of Standard Model photons called paraphotons, which may be experimentally supported by observing the spectrum of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays from BL Lacertae objects. [7]

In 2010, Baker became director of Yale's A. W. Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory, [4] [8] which includes state-of-the-art facilities for the study of neutrinos, dark matter and fundamental physics. In February 2021 he was appointed to Yale's D. Allan Bromley Professorship of Physics. [9]

Awards and honors

Related Research Articles

In physics, the fundamental interactions or fundamental forces are the interactions that do not appear to be reducible to more basic interactions. There are four fundamental interactions known to exist:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elementary particle</span> Subatomic particle having no known substructure

In particle physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a subatomic particle that is not composed of other particles. Particles currently thought to be elementary include electrons, the fundamental fermions, as well as the fundamental bosons, which generally are force particles that mediate interactions among fermions. A particle containing two or more elementary particles is a composite particle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Particle physics</span> Study of subatomic particles and forces

Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions and bosons. There are three generations of fermions, although ordinary matter is made only from the first fermion generation. The first generation consists of up and down quarks which form protons and neutrons, and electrons and electron neutrinos. The three fundamental interactions known to be mediated by bosons are electromagnetism, the weak interaction, and the strong interaction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Standard Model</span> Theory of forces and subatomic particles

The Standard Model of particle physics is the theory describing three of the four known fundamental forces in the universe and classifying all known elementary particles. It was developed in stages throughout the latter half of the 20th century, through the work of many scientists worldwide, with the current formulation being finalized in the mid-1970s upon experimental confirmation of the existence of quarks. Since then, proof of the top quark (1995), the tau neutrino (2000), and the Higgs boson (2012) have added further credence to the Standard Model. In addition, the Standard Model has predicted various properties of weak neutral currents and the W and Z bosons with great accuracy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Higgs</span> British physicist

Peter Ware Higgs is a British theoretical physicist, Emeritus Professor in the University of Edinburgh, and Nobel Prize laureate for his work on the mass of subatomic particles.

In particle physics, the W and Z bosons are vector bosons that are together known as the weak bosons or more generally as the intermediate vector bosons. These elementary particles mediate the weak interaction; the respective symbols are
W+
,
W
, and
Z0
. The
W±
 bosons have either a positive or negative electric charge of 1 elementary charge and are each other's antiparticles. The
Z0
 boson is electrically neutral and is its own antiparticle. The three particles each have a spin of 1. The
W±
 bosons have a magnetic moment, but the
Z0
has none. All three of these particles are very short-lived, with a half-life of about 3×10−25 s. Their experimental discovery was pivotal in establishing what is now called the Standard Model of particle physics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ATLAS experiment</span> CERN LHC experiment

ATLAS is the largest general-purpose particle detector experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a particle accelerator at CERN in Switzerland. The experiment is designed to take advantage of the unprecedented energy available at the LHC and observe phenomena that involve highly massive particles which were not observable using earlier lower-energy accelerators. ATLAS was one of the two LHC experiments involved in the discovery of the Higgs boson in July 2012. It was also designed to search for evidence of theories of particle physics beyond the Standard Model.

In physics, a unified field theory (UFT) is a type of field theory that allows all that is usually thought of as fundamental forces and elementary particles to be written in terms of a pair of physical and virtual fields. According to the modern discoveries in physics, forces are not transmitted directly between interacting objects but instead are described and interrupted by intermediary entities called fields.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Ellis (physicist, born 1946)</span> British physicist

Jonathan Richard Ellis is a British theoretical physicist who is currently Clerk Maxwell Professor of Theoretical Physics at King's College London.

The J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics, is presented by the American Physical Society at its annual April Meeting, and honors outstanding achievement in particle physics theory. The prize consists of a monetary award (US$10,000), a certificate citing the contributions recognized by the award, and a travel allowance for the recipient to attend the presentation. The award is endowed by the family and friends of particle physicist J. J. Sakurai. The prize has been awarded annually since 1985.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Higgs boson</span> Elementary particle

The Higgs boson, sometimes called the Higgs particle, is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics produced by the quantum excitation of the Higgs field, one of the fields in particle physics theory. In the Standard Model, the Higgs particle is a massive scalar boson with zero spin, even (positive) parity, no electric charge, and no colour charge that couples to mass. It is also very unstable, decaying into other particles almost immediately upon generation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fabiola Gianotti</span> Italian physicist, director general of the European Council for Nuclear Research

Fabiola Gianotti is an Italian experimental particle physicist who is the current and first woman Director-General at CERN in Switzerland. Her first mandate began on 1 January 2016 and ran for a period of five years. At its 195th Session in 2019, the CERN Council selected Gianotti for a second term as Director-General. Her second five-year term began on 1 January 2021 and goes on until 2025. This is the first time in CERN's history that a Director-General has been appointed for a full second term.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tejinder Virdee</span> British physicist

Sir Tejinder Singh Virdee,, is a Kenyan-born British experimental particle physicist and Professor of Physics at Imperial College London. He is best known for originating the concept of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) with a few other colleagues and has been referred to as one of the 'founding fathers' of the project. CMS is a world-wide collaboration which started in 1991 and now has over 3500 participants from 45 countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sau Lan Wu</span> American physicist

Sau Lan Wu is a Chinese American particle physicist and the Enrico Fermi Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She made important contributions towards the discovery of the J/psi particle, which provided experimental evidence for the existence of the charm quark, and the gluon, the vector boson of the strong force in the Standard Model of physics. Recently, her team located at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), using data collected at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), was part of the international effort in the discovery of a boson consistent with the Higgs boson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Jenni</span> Swiss physicist (born 1948)

Peter Jenni, is an experimental particle physicist working at CERN. He is best known as one of the "founding fathers" of the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider together with a few other colleagues. He acted as spokesperson of the ATLAS Collaboration until 2009. ATLAS is a world-wide collaboration which started in 1992 involving roughly 3,000 physicists at 183 institutions in 38 countries. Jenni was directly involved in the experimental work leading to the discoveries of the W and Z bosons in the 1980s and the Higgs boson in 2012. He is (co-)author of about 1000 publications in scientific journals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of subatomic physics</span>

The idea that matter consists of smaller particles and that there exists a limited number of sorts of primary, smallest particles in nature has existed in natural philosophy at least since the 6th century BC. Such ideas gained physical credibility beginning in the 19th century, but the concept of "elementary particle" underwent some changes in its meaning: notably, modern physics no longer deems elementary particles indestructible. Even elementary particles can decay or collide destructively; they can cease to exist and create (other) particles in result.

Mayda Velasco is a physicist and professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Northwestern University. She works in experimental particle physics and is a leading member of the CMS Collaboration at the CERN LHC. She founded COFI and is its first director. She is a pioneer in the physics potential of photon colliders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jon Butterworth</span> Professor of Physics at University College London

Jonathan Mark Butterworth is a Professor of Physics at University College London (UCL) working on the ATLAS experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC). His popular science book Smashing Physics, which tells the story of the search for the Higgs boson, was published in 2014 and his newspaper column / blog Life and Physics is published by The Guardian.

Michel Della Negra, born 1942, is a French experimental particle physicist known for his role in the 2012 discovery of the Higgs Boson.

Richard Francis Xavier Casten is an American nuclear physicist who serves as the D. Allan Bromley Professor Emeritus of Physics at Yale University. He is known for Casten's triangle, introduced in 1981.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "2002 Edward A. Bouchet Award Recipient". American Physical Society. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 "Physicist credits his Tillar roots". Arkansas Democrat Gazette. November 7, 2016. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
  3. 1 2 "Oliver Keith Baker - Physicist of the African Diaspora". www.math.buffalo.edu. Retrieved 2021-03-14.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 "Oliver Baker". The History Makers. March 10, 2013. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
  5. "Physics Expands by Five Profs". Yale Daily News. September 6, 2006. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
  6. The ATLAS Collaboration, "Observation of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC", Phys. Lett. B 716:1-29 (2012).
  7. O. K. Baker and R. J. Anantua, "TeV gamma rays from distant BL Lacs and photon-paraphoton kinetic mixing" Phys. Lett. B 290:25-28 (2010)
  8. "Wright Laboratory". Yale. 2020. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
  9. "Keith Baker appointed the D. Allan Bromley Professor of Physics". Physics Department, Yale University. April 13, 2021.
  10. "Edward A. Bouchet Award". American Physical Society. 2002. Retrieved 20 October 2020.